


Look For Broken Bars

by Drel_Murn



Series: Step by Step [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Abandonment, Airbending & Airbenders, Apprentice - Freeform, Apprentice Doctor, Chronic Illness, Contracts, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dancing, Debt, Doctor's Oath, Doctors & Physicians, Dreamsharing, Earthbending & Earthbenders, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation colonies, Gen, Gladiators, Guilt, Hidden History, Meddling, Meddling Spirits, Mentions of Tanuki, Minor Character Death, Muteness, Nishiyama, Pen Pals, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Runaway, Secrets, Servants, Si Wong Desert, Spies & Secret Agents, Spirit Parade, Spirits, Survivor Guilt, Suzaku Island, Threats of Violence, Trapped, Trapped for your own safety, Zhimu Colony, mute character, stories, story telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-04-16 00:37:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14152848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drel_Murn/pseuds/Drel_Murn
Summary: Shackles given to you by those you love are still shackles, even if you're the one to put them on, and I will be free, even if I have to leave everything.





	1. Nishiyama

Fact: My first memory is the sight of some boy’s back as he walks away from me - chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a heartbeat.

Memory: Beat beat. Beat beat. Beat-

Fact: I live in Nishiyama, probably the second town the Fire Nation conquered when they first set out to colonize the Earth Kingdoms. We’ve straddled the line between Fire and Earth for nearly a century, instisting staunchly that we were one of the other. Something was bound to bend.

Fact: My Uncle Ayumu has been sick for as long as I can remember. I don’t know where my parents and Aunt Ume get the money to pay his medical bills.

Fact: I’ve dreamt of an airbender who lives in the Fire Nation (chin up, eyes dancing, always moving) for what I’m sure is longer. Her name is Akane, and she tells me incredible tales about the spirits she meets, tells me about the world, tells me about myself. When I grow older, I sometimes think I should hate her for it.

Memory: (“You’re not fire,” she tells me as we climb the volcano.

“What?”

“You’re not fire,” she says, pausing and waving the hand that isn't holding onto the rock of the mountainside.”You don’t walk like fire.”

“If I’m not fire, then what am I?” I ask, and she frowns at me.

“That’s for you to find out.”)

Fact: When I’m four, I stomp a foot, screaming. I don’t remember why. I just remember the way rocks flew out of the ground, remember the way my mother's face goes pale, remember the visit to Agni’s shrine the very next day. They don’t let me play with Shu any more.

Fact: When I’m four, my father starts taking me out to the forest. Supposedly it’s so that we can collect herbs for the doctor so Uncle Ayumu’s medicine is less expensive. When we’re deep enough, my father teaches me how to dance as I move the earth. I asked him once why he wasn’t teaching me how to fight. He asked me, _Why destroy when you can create?_

Fact: When I’m six, Akane tells me that her whole island is plotting to overthrow the Fire Lord. At first it’s just a slip. I keep asking. Afterwards, she tells me I’m too curious for my own sake.

Fact: When I was eight, my teacher has us write and mail letters to relatives we don’t live with. When I go home to ask my parents, they reluctantly tell me about my cousin Nuan, who went to work at the Fire Lord’s palace (chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a heartbeat. They don’t tell me that.).

Memory: _. . . they say you’re working to help Uncle Ayumu. Thank you. Well, he’s your father so maybe I don’t need to say that, sorry. He’s a bit of a grouch, but they put him on new medicine lately, and I think he’s been doing better because he told me more about you than the others. I don’t really remember you, but I think - never mind . . ._

Fact: Nuan writes back. He has beautiful calligraphy, and the bottom right corner of his letter has a painting of Honoiro’s volcano. Aunt Ume and Uncle Ayumu cry when they see it. (He tells me that he’s the personal servant to Prince Lu Ten. I don’t tell them that.)

Fact: Akane (chin up, eyes dancing, always moving) laughs when I tell her who my cousin is. When I ask why, later, she tells me it was laughter or tears, and she’d rather laugh. She tells me rather calmly, _we have plans to kill him you know. If we ever need to control Prince Lu Ten, we’ll go after Nuan_.

Fact: We keep writing.

Memory: Sit down, pull out paper, pull out inkwell, unseal inkwell, pull out brush, dip brush, write, wait to dry, seal with candle wax, take it to the post office, watch it get thrown into a basket full of other letters.

Fact: When I’m ten, the price of Uncle Ayumu’s medication increases, and the _I don’t know how they pay_ turns into desperate _we can’t pay like this_. My father takes out a loan, but it’s not enough. I start going around town, doing odd jobs for money. I become a familiar face, and soon the police turn a blind eye when they see me out working when I’m supposed to be in school. Everyone one the town knows exactly what’s happening. My father takes out more loans.

Fact: Just before I turn eleven, Uncle Ayumu has a series of good days. He manages to stand, and with Aunt Ume’s help, limps outside to sit in the sun.

Face: On my birthday, I wake to Aunt Ume’s scream. She woke up next to him, his skin room temperature.

Memory: There’s a Fire Sage talking about Agni and loss as we scatter ashes to wind over the river, and all I can think is that I don’t want to be cremated. It takes effort at the moment not to _shift_ and _shift_ and sink myself into the earth until I feel solid until I feel like I have something to stand on to prop myself up against. I tell my mother, later. She doesn’t grow pale anymore, just resigned. She says, _yes, of course._ My father sends me out to the forest on my own. The doctor pays us for the herbs now.

Fact: The debt collectors come calling. Even though I’ve dropped out of school entirely, my odd jobs aren’t paying enough. I would have stopped writing Nuan to save postage long ago, if my father hadn’t gotten an odd look in his eye when I mentioned it, and told me I didn’t need to think about that. I know what he’s thinking - that if nothing else, he can give me this. Postage isn’t expensive.

Fact: I can earthbend. We’re near enough to Earth Rumble 9 that I can easily catch a ride there and back, even in the middle of the night. My first night fighting, I get more beat up than I bargained for, but the pay is as good as I could have wanted.

Fact: Akane hates it. I show up late to the dream that night, my black eye already beginning to show, and she flutters around me. Her lips are thin, but she doesn’t say a word, just tells me how to treat each and every one of my injuries.

Memory: (“If this is what it takes-” I tell Akane, silent Akane, no laugh in sight. “If this is what it takes-”

“If this is what it takes, you’ll do it until forever. I know, you stupid rock,” she mutters. Her head in on my stomach as we both stare at the sky. “I know.”)

Fact: When I return, cautiously, I have fans. I’m a girl, and girls don’t fight in the Earth Kingdoms, but this isn’t proper Earth society, it’s been Fire too for almost a century, and who doesn’t like the underdog? I’m escorted up to see the manager, who tries to talk me into signing a contract. Only Nuan’s words in the back of my head keep me from accepting right away. I take a copy of the contract home afterwards to study it with my parent’s help. I find several things I know I shouldn't sign away - but we need the money desperately.  
  
Fact: In my dreams, Akane’s lips thin as she listens to me list conditions, and she asks for the the first time - _what if I sent money?_ She tells me - _school isn’t that important, fighting isn’t important, your name on the other hand . . . If he knows who you are, he has your future, even beyond the contract._ It would be a moment of truth. Does she really exist? Is the impossible real - are there airbenders still alive, living within the Fire Nation?

Memory: My father plays the drum for me to dance to in the woods, and earth flies into the air around me.

Fact: I’m an earthbender, from firebending blood. The impossible has already happened. I tell her not to anyways.

Fact: The manager is happy when I (chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a drum beat) offer him the signed contract after my fight. There’s blood dripping out of my nose as he signs on the bottom line and files it away. I think, hazily, as he hands me my signing bonus and tonight’s money, that I should be lying down. Not sleeping - though gods, I feel so tired. _Where is your home?_ someone asks. I shake my head. _Where is your home?_

Memory: (I blink at Akane (chin up, eyes dancing, always moving). She’s saying something. She sounds worried. Her eyes don’t dance. I try to smile for her, ignoring the cracking blood on my lip.

  
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “But I need to wake up. There’s something - I need to wake up.”

“Then wake up.” She says something else, “- just come back to me, okay? Come back.”)

Fact: I’m less confused when I wake up. Or - no that’s wrong. When I wake up, I can focus. I’m home in my bed. I can hear my parents arguing with each other over whether they should get the doctor. The hissing of their voices makes my head pound, and I let out an involuntary groan.

Fact: They don’t go to the doctor. My starting bonus goes to pay off one of the loans my father took out, and I spend the week in bed, my headache slowly dying down.

Fact: I don’t tell Nuan.

Memory: (Akane pulls me into a hug when I fall asleep again.

“I was so worried,” she mumbles into my shoulder as she holds me close and tight.)

Fact: I’m still dizzy when I fight again. I stumble at just the right time, and manage punch my opponent in the gut. It takes a long moment to understand what’s happening when the crowd cheers. I’m taken out fairly easily in the second fight, but the manager hands me a bonus for winning my first fight.

Fact: The debts my family has to pay off are many, but Earth Rumble 9 pays well. I’m fifteen when the last of the loans are paid off. With the sudden lack of debt, the family seems to have so much more money. The latest contract I signed with Earth Rumble doesn’t finish for a year so I need to keep fighting, but I no longer need to take the odd jobs around town anymore just to help make ends meet.

Fact: With nothing else to do during the day, I return to school under the watchful eyes of the police officers. I missed five years of school, so I get put into a class with the eleven-year old kids. I walk in there (chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a drum beat) and ignore the whispers.

Memory: (“School isn’t that important if you need to do something else to live,” Akane tells me as she shows me how to cast a fishing net. “But if you can, then take it. Learn everything you can - take advantage of everything free that you’re given.”)

Fact: I’m seventeen, ready to be free of Earth Rumble 9, stopping to say goodbye to the manager on my way out when he smiles. _You’re not leaving,_ he says. Shadows loom behind me, the two top fighters blocking my path to the door as the manager slides a contract towards me and sits back, smiling. _You make far too much profit for me to let you go._

Fact: He knows who I am. Where I live. Who my parents are. All he has to do is snap his fingers, and . . .

Fact: He has my mom here, terrified, and I’m nowhere near his best fighter. I’m nowhere near good enough to get myself free, but I would have tried. With my mother as leverage . . .

Memory: (I glare at the manager as he taps the contract on his desk, an inkwell and brush already set out for me to use.

“Why do you want me so badly?” I ask through gritted teeth as I pick up the brush. “I only win about half the time.”

“You said it yourself, once. People like to cheer for the underdog,” the manager says calmly. “And with you, they even have a chance of winning. Sign the contract.”

If I sign it, he won’t let me go. If I sign it, he’ll have a right to me, a right to demand that I fight, a right to use my name. If I sign it, it’s legal.

My mother makes a sound behind me.

If I don’t sign, they might break her fingers one at a time. I grit my teeth and set the brush to paper.)

Fact: Akane isn’t surprised. There’s nothing for her to fuss over tonight, so we sit together on the roof of my home with blankets, looking up at the stars. (I don’t tell Nuan.)

Fact: I keep fighting. My family doesn’t have the money to run, and I can survive. I stick around after delivering herbs to the doctor one day, and he asks me if I still need an apprenticeship. Tells me I already know the herbs better than any other idiot kid around here. Compliments my steady hands. It’s another contract signed, but it feels good to help people.

Fact: I sign again at nineteen. My father’s terrified panting echoing in the dead air of the manager’s office.

Memory: (“Let me tell you a story,” Akane says one day. She’s looking over some papers she won’t let me see - probably war reports her island stole in their quest to weaken the Fire Nation.

“Once, a boy sold his future to help his father. He didn’t mean to sell all of it, but he sold his name too, and that was enough to leash him.”

“I’m a girl.”

“It wasn’t about you, stupid, it was about your cousin. Think for a moment, they’re not about to let the personal servant of their prince go quit whenever he wants to.”

“And yet you still have plans to kill him.”

“Yes, but this is war, Rei. It’s not about him.”)

Fact: I receive only one letter from Nuan after I turn twenty. It explains, shortly, that he’s being sent off to fight at the front line. That he won’t have consistent access to messengers. It doesn’t say that he won’t write again. After the first month without a reply, I hire a hawk. It returns without a reply, but I know he’s not dead. He can’t be dead. They’d tell us right? (There are water stains in the margins. One two, one two, one- blurring the ink where they bleed too close.)

Fact: Apparently I’m good for more than just my steady hands and my ability to recognise herbs, even though I was apprenticed a couple years late. Tu the doctor started making me ask the questions and diagnosing the patients. He stays in the room watching, occasionally offering up a comment or prompting me to ask further, but unless I have no idea what’s happening or I get something wrong, he doesn’t say a word. After a month, he starts sending me home with his books and instructions to memorize this page or that section

Fact: Akane is amused and relieved when I tell her. _I was worried when you left school,_ she says. _You needed the money, but you can’t fight and do odd jobs forever._

Memory: (Tu the doctor grumbles and laughs as we go through his books while the office is empty of patients.

“It tells you to use leeches?” he asks incredulously. “Seriously? Let me see that!”

He hunches over the book in the light coming in through the open window, squinting, then hands it back to me with a huff. “Wow. Kid, that’s another mistake. Don’t use leeches. I can’t think of any situation where they actually help.”

“Alright. The next thing is willow bark.”

“. . . What’s it say it’s good for?”

“Headaches. I’ve seen you make willow bark tea you know.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Hey, first thing in this book!”)

Fact: I don’t sign at twenty one. Wait - sorry, I should backup a bit.

Fact: Three months after my twenty first birthday, I open the front door in the morning to find a pile of rags. No. Not rags.

Memory: (I nudge the pile of rags and it groans, rolling over to reveal a face.

“Rei?” it asks.

Later, at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea, freshly washed and in an old set of his father’s clothes (shoulders hunched, back bowed, fingers fluttering like a bird’s wings), Nuan just sort of stares at me. (When he’d followed me in, he’d wandered. There was no _one two, one two, one-_ of feet on the floor.)

“Sometimes, I thought you weren’t real,” he says. And, “Agni, you’re so tall.”

“Why’d you come back?”

His face crumples and he slumps forward even further. “It’s my fault. I wasn’t there to protect him because I was trying to protect myself.”

“What happened?”

Slowly, hesitantly, “I’m an earthbender.”

Chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a heartbeat - that probably should have been a sign. I huff, then laugh. I can’t stop laughing. Nuan watches me with wonder, like he’s never seen anyone laugh before. I stop laughing.)

Fact: I bring Nuan with me to Tu the doctor. My long lost cousin showing up at my door isn’t good enough of a reason to miss work - especially since I’m apprenticed to a doctor. I push him into a seat at the clinic and check him under Tu the doctor’s watchful eyes.

Fact: He’s not malnourished. There’s nothing wrong with him physically. But something about him makes my skin itch. It’s not his body, and it’s not his eyes on me, watching in wonder. I tell Tu the doctor this while we’re in the back room, and he hums. Then because he knows too much; _When’s the last time he bent?_

Fact: I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t _see_ it. I didn’t want to - you don’t just not bend.

Memory: (I want to yell at him because he keeps refusing and refusing - and Tu the doctor gave voice to the possibility, but I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to believe him.

Nuan’s just shaking his head, over and over again, his arms pulled tight to his sides, and I just stand there. I just watch him.

This is my cousin. He’s older than me. (He’s supposed to be stronger. Supposed to be chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a heartbeat. Not . . . not this.)

I stare blankly at his clothes. His father’s clothes, Uncle Ayumu's clothes. The shirt’s a nice bright red, shading towards orange. It was Uncle Ayumu’s favorite shirt, the one he wore on his good days, when he could walk on his own. He was wearing it when Tu the doctor told us there was nothing else he could do.

My lips tighten.)

Fact: I drag him home. He didn’t bend that day, and in the end, it’s not like I can really make him. Aunt Ume goes pale when she sees him. It isn’t until she whispers Uncle Ayumu’s name that I look back and realize . . .

Fact: I can’t remember Uncle Ayumu without grey hair and stress lines, but if I had, I imagine he would have looked much like Nuan does. Aunt Ume starts crying, and Nuan, still overwhelmed from the woods, starts crying, and I end up with both of them clinging to me and two wet shoulders after a long, heart stopping moment where _I don’t know what to do, Agni, what do I do?_

Fact: My parents are - thankfully - not as emotional. My father cries a bit, but they're silent tears as he helps my mother make dinner. Aunt Ume sits silent and pale at the table, going over our money and budgeting, occasionally glancing over at Nuan where he’s huddled in the corner. I sit next to him as I mend clothes - the only odd job I’d kept after the loans were paid off. My skin still itches.

Fact: Akane is thoughtful when I tell her, then annoyed. She kicks the ground, sending a visible ripple of wind flying away from us, then insists on getting a piggyback ride. I don’t mind. We’re about the same size, but she doesn’t really feel that heavy. _I want to come to you,_ she mumbles into my hair. _But I’m not allowed to leave the island for my own safety._ I want to tell her to leave anyways so that I can see her, so I can see that I’m not crazy for knowing her, but I remember the story she told me about Nuan. She’s just as trapped by her bending as I am by contracts and threats, but at least I chose this.

Memory: (The itching on my skin from the knowledge that Nuan is refusing to bend drives me out into the woods more than usual. Tu runs out of herbs for me to collect after the first day, so I take to gathering firewood as an excuse instead.

Nuan follows me into the forest on the fourth day. I ignore him as I make my way through the forest until we’re deep enough in that no one should come across us. He watches as I set down the straps for collecting the fire wood and move towards the center of the clearing. I close my eyes and set my feet. When I start to bend, the movements are slow.

Slow and steady, I lift the earth around me. I can hear Nuan’s breath hitch from the edge of the clearing, but I ignore it. I take my steps (chin up, back straight-) to the remembered sound of the (steps as steady as a) drum beat, and I turn slowly, step by step wandering.

This isn’t like fighting in the arena. This is how I learned to bend, not as a show of aggression, but as a dance. My father doesn’t come out to play for me as I do this anymore, but that’s alright because the sound of my feet on the earth is enough to set the rhythm for my ears.

The sound of another set of feet scuffing the ground makes me open my eyes a little. Nuan is watching me carefully, trying to mimic the way I’m moving. Small rocks swirl around his feet with his jerky movement tension practically bleeds off of him as his movements slowly become a little smoother, his feet more rhythmic.

He doesn’t move to the same beat - or even really move much at all - but he’s bending.)

Fact: I don’t sign on as a gladiator for the Earth Rumble at 21. The manager makes a mistake when he chooses my hostage because I know the Nuan can fight. There’s a hand on his shoulder, and the two strongest fighters are there, but in the four years since the manager first told me I _was_ going to sign again, I’d gotten better. Not good enough to fight both of the best fighters alone - even one on one was a bit of a gamble. But. But.

Fact: Nuan is a soldier (when our eyes meet, his back straightens), and Tu the doctor recommended a village to the east where I would be able to train as a doctor under a colleague of his, and all of my family’s possessions are packed in preparation for the move. I don’t sign at 21.

Fact: Akane grows _radiant_ when she hears, and it feels like I haven't seen her this way in forever, all chin up, eyes dancing, always moving. I hadn’t realized how much she worried until the worry was gone, and she was spinning around me, laughing.

Memory: (The cart rocks back and forth slightly. I’m going over the medical books that Tu the doctor sent with us, for lack of anything better to do. My lips twist as I read the all of my notes in the margins. Almost every single entry is marked up or blotted out entirely, with various notes as to the actual uses of the herb.

Beside me, Nuan is running his fingers over the beads I’d sewn into his sleeves, his lips moving silently as he repeat his prayer.

“Do you . . .” I trail off, glancing up to where Aunt Ume and my parents are sitting on the driver's bench. “Do you dream of anyone?”

Nuan pauses, his fingers lingering on his sleeve as he looks up at me, his eyes wary. “What do you mean?”

“There’s this girl I dream of, every night,” I tell him. I almost expect him to tease me about a crush the way I had when he’d started sending me letter after letter littered with information about one of the other servants at the palace, but if anything, he only grows even more still. “I don’t know her when - she only exists in my dreams -”

“But she’s more important to you than anything, isn’t she?” Nuan asks, frowning at his sleeve. I feel frozen because I hadn’t wanted to put it into words, but . . . if I had to choose between her and my family . . . Nuan sighs, and brings his knees up so that he can put his forehead on them. “It happens. You’re the third person I’ve known.”)

Fact: Tu the doctor’s friend Chao the doctor is more than a little bit insane. No, not insane, she declared me a doctor, so I can’t just say things like that anymore. Chao the doctor is _eccentric_. After about a week of watching me work, she cackled and told me that Tu the doctor must be going senile because I was a perfectly competent doctor in my own right.

Fact: Nuan left about a week after that. I tried to tell him that he didn’t have to leave, but he insisted that he was a danger to be close to. He set off towards the south at first light with everything I could get him to take, and a sizable bag of wound treating herbs with written instructions. He still wasn’t okay, not in any way, shape, or form . . . but I wasn’t about to trap him here. So I let him go (chin up, back straighter, and maybe his steps falter, but he starts again).

  
Fact: On my twenty second birthday, I shoulder my own pack and leave the village. Chao the doctor told me I could do more good on the move, in a way that she just wasn’t able to anymore. She has me swear an oath before I leave. Her eyes are unusually serious as she recites the oath for me entirely first so I know what I’m agreeing to, then line by line for me to swear. The first line is _do no harm_ , and the others are important, but . . . I won’t ever fight like I did in the Earth Rumble. I won’t ever fight again except to protect, but I hadn’t planned to. I’ve had my fill of fighting for money. I set off to the south (chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a heart beat).


	2. Beifong Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akane of Suzaku isn't as carefree as she looks. After all, being an airbender in the Fire Nation in't easy.

I know four things about myself.

One, I can see spirits.

Two, I’m an airbender.

Three, I’m a burden.

Four, I love the girl that I see in my dreams.

It’s not much, is it? I could expand.

I could tell you about the spirits I’ve seen over the years - the ones who run their fingers through my hair, the ones that watch me from afar, the ones that whisper news and history into my ears. I could tell you how they call me odd, broken, because you aren't supposed to see spirits without looking for them.

I could tell you that according to those spirits, I’m an airbender because when all of the original airbenders were gone, the new ones had to come from somewhere. I could tell you about the way I’ve stood at the edge of a cliff and leaned into the wind like it was a solid thing. I could tell you about the way it slips through my fingers, dogs at my footsteps, tries to lift me when I look at the sky.

I could tell you that my aunt is the lady of an island that has always been the farthest from the capital, the most forgotten, the closest to the the Southern Air Temple. I could tell you that the Fire Lord has been suspicious of us for what feels like forever because of that closeness, because it would be so easy to hide airbenders. I could tell you that my aunt and my family and my island have been subtly rebelling for the past century because what the Fire Lord has done is  _ wrong _ . I could tell you that even the slightest hint of an airbender on our island would be enough to bring the Fire Lord’s men down upon us, enough to disrupt everything.

I could tell you about Rei’s laugh, about her family, about the flick of her wrist when she bends, about the rhythm of her feet on the ground. I could tell you about the way she dances, the way she fights, the way she dozes on hot summer days. I could tell you about the way she never seems to notice how my eyes linger on her, on the fall of her hair, on the warm brown of her eyes. I could tell you about the ways she makes me want to stand up and be useful, instead of sitting there.

I won’t. I can see spirits, yes, but that sets me apart. I can airbend, yes, but that’s because of a genocide. I’m a burden. And the girl I love hasn’t noticed I love her.

So, at the age of twenty two, I run away from home. I stow away on a ship to Gaoling with only that much of a plan, and spend the rest of the trip trying to figure out what to do next.

I step off onto Earth Kingdom soil without much of a goal in mind, and wander the streets as the sun sets. Near the docks, vendors line the streets, hawking everything from food to cheap jewelry. A bit farther in, women dressed in clothing more appropriate for the beach on Yujin Island giggle and fan themselves from the shelter of doorways, calling out to passersby. It isn’t until the third house, when one of the women winks at me as she asks if I want to dance that I understand what they’re doing, and I’m sure I blush a deep, terrible red as I duck my head and hurry quickly away.

The streets are fairly straight, and I reach the edge of town as darkness truly starts to fall. I pause at the gap between the last of the houses and the forest, lit only by the light coming from the windows. My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag as I glance back. Though I can’t hear any of the noise from the area near the docks, I can still see the hazy red glow of the lanterns in the distance. The forest, when I turn back to it, looks only cold and lonely. I start towards it anyways.

I listen to tree spirits whispering as I make my way carefully through the trees. They sound . . . different from what I’m used to. At home, the hum of the spirits in the trees is a constant, wavering sound that flickers to the breeze like a candle. Here, the hum pulses like the steady backbeat of a song. It reminds me the songs Rei taught me - the ones that she dances to in the forest.

I settle down on a branch of one of the larger trees, pull my cloak tighter around me, and shift my bag to my lap as I hope for another sleepless night.

There’s a reason I took so long to run away, when I’d been thinking about it seriously since I turned fifteen. When I decided that I wanted to run away, I decided that I wanted to run away from everyone - including Rei. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago, when Aunt Kimiko first sent me out to take night watch on the lighthouse that I figured out how to do it.

I’d noticed before that I always arrived in the dreamscape before Rei, and left it before her too, but I’d figured that was just a difference in our personalities or something. Dream sharing seems like something spirits would do to advance their plans, and their plans don’t always make sense, take it from someone who can see them. But when I fell asleep the morning after I stayed up all night in the lighthouse, Rei didn’t show up at all. And that night, when I went to sleep a little later than normal, Rei hit me like a stampeding bull-moose as she threw her arms around me and knocked me off my feet.

From her frantic questions and the calm she forced upon herself as she checked to make sure I was truly alright, I gathered that I hadn't been in her dream either. From _ that _ , I concluded that we were probably only in the dream world when we slept, and if one of us didn’t sleep at night, we wouldn’t see each other.

The discovery was like slotting the last puzzle piece into place and standing back to look at the finished picture in satisfaction.

I reminded Rei that spirits are strange. I told her that maybe now that we’re adults, they think we don’t need as much support. I told her that even when she wasn’t there, I came to the same dreamscape, so we could probably leave things to tell the other that we’d been there. I didn’t tell her I spent the night awake.

I felt horrible. And when I woke up, I made arrangements for a ship to the Earth Kingdoms, then took another night shift, the week after the first, just to make sure. Rei was worried again, but less so this time. She left me a letter, and there was a sour taste in my mouth as I read it.

Another week, and I stayed up through the night, leafing through a book I’d brought with me by candle light as the ship rocked slightly beneath me. The furthest I’d ever been from Suzaku before then was the Southern Air Temple. I watched Yingtao Island as we passed and caught a brief glimpse of the temple between mountains.

A shift in the comforting hum of the trees pulls my attention away from my thoughts. It only takes me a moment to recognise the new pattern. Even though the set rhythm throws the melody off slightly, it’s similar enough to the sound the trees took when someone was running through them at home. I peer over the edge of the tree branch, straining my eyes to see through the deep shadows below me. I’m about to pull back, thinking maybe I was mistaken, maybe it means something different here, when a howl freezes me in place.

A dog barks once, twice, coming closer and closer until it appears out of the darkness through a gap in the branches. Not a dog’s silhouette, or its shadow, but a dog, lit by an absent light that doesn’t affect its surroundings. A dog, wagging its tail as it stares up at me.

(Absently, in the back of my mind, I note that the tree-song has shifted once again. No, it sounds like the melody of welcome that tree spirits sang when I entered the forest back home.)

“Okuri-inu?” I ask hesitantly, half to myself as I clutch my bag close and try to match a spirit tale to the creature before me. It couldn’t be a komainu - komainu guard temples, and I’d come far enough into the forest that there probably aren’t any temples nearby. Sunekosuri are either invisible or look like cats, its hair doesn’t look long enough for it to be a keukegen, and it really just doesn’t look like a tanuki.

The dog barks again and runs in a small circle before stopping facing me. It tilts its head and  _ leaps _ much farther and much higher than any dog has the right to leap. I abruptly find myself with a lap full of dog, and I have to scramble to grab my bag with one hand and the scruff of the dog’s neck with my other hand as it balances precariously on my legs and sticks a wet nose into my neck.

The okuri-inu lets out a high whine, then goes limp in my grip when it finds it can’t move me, and obediently stays still when I let it go. I carefully put my bag behind me and pull the straps over my shoulders before I lean back against the tree again.  _ Then _ I pet the dog. It lets out a lower whine and sticks its nose into my midriff as its tail starts to wag, nudging at my sash. I shake my head and dig into the folds obligingly to pull out the bag of jerky.

“Do you want some of this?” I ask, holding the back above its head. The dog lets out a low whine, its tail going still and its head tilting back to watch my hand, then a short bark. I smile and pull a piece of the jerky out of the bag and let the dog pull it from my hand a I tuck the bag back into my sash.

“You’re a good dog, aren’t you?” I ask, running a hand down the dog’s back as it gnaws on the jerky, its wagging tail bumping my legs occasionally.

I know I should probably be more frightened - half the stories about okuri-inu are about them eating people who trip, and about how they’re such malevolent spirits that they frighten off all the lesser malevolent spirits - but I’m not walking around right now, so I can’t trip, and I’ve got no problems with it frightening off other spirits at the moment, seeing as I am in the middle of the forest, at night.

I watch it tear at the jerky for a while, content to wait and see if it wants anything else, but when it grows tired of the slobbery jerky, it just glances up at me and paws at my tunic.

“Do you want me to try to recite Dragons Over Honoiro?” I ask on a whim, and for lack of anything better to do. The okuri-inu lets out a short bark.

“Alright,” I say. “So, I think it starts like this:  _ The Fire Islands have always been known for their . . . heat, and tonight . . . _ ”

By the time dawn’s light is edging across the sky, I’ve gone through about four plays. I’d given up on reciting them line for line fairly early on, but I still had a good enough idea of what was happening in all of the scenes to make up my own words mocking the writer and the general idea of the play. The okuri-inu seems to like my versions of the plays because its tail wags hard enough to shake both of our bodies whenever I manage a particularly vicious mockery.

I was winding down the tale of Omashu when the okuri-inu froze in my lap. I pause in response and look down at it. “What’s wong?”

I hear the voice calling this time, though I can’t make out the words, and the okuri-inu lets out a low whine as it looks up at me.

“Do you . . . want to go?” I ask, and it lets out a short bark. “Then go ahead.”

It lets out another bark, then jumps off my lap and the branch to land of the ground, where it immediatly darts off with another loud bark. This time, I can make out the cry of, ”Little sister! There you are!”

I feel a faint smile cross my face as I stare out into the forest. The smile slips as I glance up, trying to gauge the time. I’d had a few slip ups on the ship here as we traveled east and the sun rose just a bit earlier, and I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience of hiding in the dream scape and watching Rei stare sadly at the ocean.

Besides that, I still have to go find some cave or make myself a shelter that’s dark enough that I actually can get to sleep. I’ve found myself increasingly grateful over the past couple of weeks that airbenders didn’t feel any obligation to be awake at any particular time, because if I’d been a firebender, my whole plan to avoid Rei would have been toast.

(If I’d been a firebender, there wouldn't have been a plan because I wouldn’t have been a burden on my aunt and a danger to the revolution.)

“Thank you for taking care of my little sister for the night,” someone calls from below, and I glance down from the sky to see a barefoot little boy in a badly-dyed mottled green tunic with leaves tangled in his hair holding the okuri-inu. He’s probably a spirit too, but even though I haven’t done much all night, I feel too tired to figure out what kind. “She’s still rather young, and while many of the spirits around here recognise her, I’m always worried that some human will come along and kill her.”

“I’m a human,” I reply, feeling a bit off balance.

The boy only brightens at my words. “Oh! You must be one of Makani and Era’s new brood, then.” He looks me over critically, and I resist the urge to pull my cloak tighter around me. 

“My. If they blessed all of their new benders like this . . . Well, in thanks for taking care of my sister, I offer a reward. Ask of me what you wish, and if it’s within my power, I shall provide it for you.”

I think suddenly about what this must look like from the outside. Some boy in Earth rags was offering to help out a girl in fashionable, if practical, Fire robes. I burst out laughing, laughing until tears are streaming down my face, laughing till I’m not laughing, laughing till I’m sobbing, till I’m wiping the tears away as I try to get a hold of myself.

The boy watches from the ground below with a hint of irritation or impatience. The okuri-inu whines, but she doesn’t try to get out of the boy’s grasp. When my crying finally dies off, and I’m just sitting on the tree branch, breath trembling, eyes covered, he repeats himself. “Ask of me what you wish, and if it’s within my power, I shall provide it for you.”

There honestly were only three things I could think of to ask for. I could ask to only see spirits in the way normal people do, I could ask to no longer be an airbender, or I could ask that Rei notice that I love her.

I am who I am because I can see spirits and airbend. To lose either of those abilities wouldn’t make everything better. Even if I couldn’t bend or see spirits, I’d done things to protect myself that I can’t take back. To give up my abilities would make those sacrifices feel cheap.

As for getting Rei to notice me . . . 

Yeah, she might return my feelings. But I’d never know - it would always feel like she wouldn’t love me for me. It would all be because of someone else, and as much as I want her to see what I feel, I want her to love me because of me.

“It’s fine,” I say before I catch myself and repeat the formal words that the spirits of Suzaku had coaxed me into learning. “There is nothing I wish of you, nothing I would wish for that I truly want granted. I release you from any debt.”

The boy stares at me. The lack of expressions reminds me of the tengu who guarded the top of Suzaku’s volcano. Even on the rare occasion he took human form, Nori didn’t really express his emotions that way. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, just that he wasn’t used to having a face that could move, so he forgot to make expressions. “If there is nothing, then at least allow me to feed and shelter you for the night, and to point you to a place that offers something you might desire.”

I hesitate, but it’s not like I have much else to do. “If you would have me, I would like that. Just give me a moment to climb down.”

()

The boy brings me to a cave deep in the forest, the okuri-inu following on our heels. He serves me a breakfast of berries, oat-rice bread, and hummingbee honey. When I‘m done eating, he takes me deeper into the cave and presents me with a dark room and a bedroll to sleep on.

I waste my time in the dreamscape the same way I’ve been wasting it since I left, avoiding the question of what exactly I’m going to do with myself now that I’ve actually run away, and building little stick houses for Rei so that she knows I’m still alive.

I feel listless when I wake up, and it takes me a while before I summon up enough willpower to climb out of the warm bedroll. The boy is sitting next to the fire once again, ladling something from the pot into two bowls, and he motions for me to sit on the cushion next to him. He passes me the bowl and a pair of chopsticks before he picks up his own bowl. I mutter a thanks and a quick prayer before I start in on the food - a stew of some sort with chunks of meat and vegetables floating thick in the broth. The boy takes the bowl when I’m done and sets it on a ledge to be washed later.

“Come on,” the boy says offering me a hand. “I have something to show you.”

I glance back at the room with my stuff as I let him pull me to my feet, but I follow the boy when he keeps tugging me towards the entrance of the cave. “Come on.”

I hear the okuri-inu scramble after us as the boy leads me out and into the forest. As we walk, I start to feel odd. Sometimes I blink, and the angle of the setting sun or the forest around us changes. Once, for a brief moment, I swear that I see the trees all covered in the bright reds, yellows, and oranges of autumn. Time flows oddly - like molasses or honey - so the only measurement I have is that by the time we stop, it’s dark.

The boy pulls me to a stop next to the last tree at the edge of a large field that stretches to the horizon. I blink and rub at my eyes with my free hand as he kneels down to run a hand over the okuri-inu’s back, feeling abruptly grounded.

“There,” the boy says, finally releasing my hand to point at small collection of tents in the distance, outlighted by the light of a fire. “Tell them the truth, and they will have you gladly. You will not be a burden here.”

“What?”

The boy looks up at me, then stands, dusting off his hands. “You were thinking too small when you replied to me earlier. I know what happens when the great spirits just take new benders, I know what you think. You wanted be Fire like your family, or to not bend. You want to be helpful, right?”

“Yes,” I reply hesitantly.

“You weren’t thinking big enough,” the boy says. “Unless you truly only want to help your family, there are other people who would appreciate you help.”

I glance over at the tents. “Who are they?”

“People,” the boy says simply. Then he turns to point to a tree a bit further back. “Your belongings are there, waiting for you.”

He catches my hand again as I move to get my stuff, and I pause. “Before you go, should you ever need help, ask for the tanuki of Beifong Forest.” He pauses, then continues softer. “Ask for Guiying.”

“That’s- you’ve already done so much for me-” My aunt’s words about names come to me. She’d always told me to be careful of what contracts I put my name on because of how easily someone could trick you if you didn't read carefully, and to be doubly cautious about whom I gave it out to because names have a certain power to spirits.

The boy shushes me before I can say anything else. “Just remember.”

He drops my hand and turns away, disappearing between one step and the next. I hesitate for a moment, staring at the empty air, before I shake my head and head off to grab my things. I frown as I pick my bag up, weighing it thoughtfully. It’s heavier than it was, and even just looking at it, I can see that there’s more stuff in it than I remember leaning against last night. 

Sure enough, when I pull open the neck of the bag, there’s a bag of food on top of the rest of my things, and a couple of loose candles, and a pair of spark rocks. Beneath those, there’s an actual bedroll on top of the blanket and tarp I’d brought. I shake my head and carefully pack the bag back up.

The boy - Guiying - gave me so much just for taking care of his sister for one night, and for all that I know that spirits repay debts tenfold . . . spirit tales are about  _ great _ people, people who would give their life for a stranger, and I am not  _ great _ . I’m barely even good, but I try to be fair, and in all fairness, I don’t deserve to have a spirit waiting on my whims.

I shake myself out of my thought as I pull the bag closed and sling it over my shoulder. I square my shoulders and turn on my heel to head towards the tents.

As I draw closer, I can make out a couple of some kind of ostrich animals beyond the tents, and one little girl in Earth Kingdom greens. She glances up as I come closer, and I can see the milky film that covers her eyes.

“Hello,” I call gently.

Her head tilts. “Who are you?”

“I - um -” I scramble for a name, “Jin! I’m Jin!”

“That answers just about nothing,” the girl replies after a moment.

I open my mouth to speak, then pause, distracted abruptly from my frantic embarrassment by a breeze against the back my neck. My eyes flicker to the still tents. Something’s wrong. I throw myself forwards into a roll as someone lunges forwards, arms sweeping into the space where my head had been. I use my airbending to twist myself in midair and land in a crouch facing my attacker.

Before I can do anything however, rocks rush from the ground around me, trapping my feet and running up my body to lock around my arms and trap me in place. I jerk at the bindings for moment, then slump into them when it becomes clear that all I’m doing is wasting energy.

I listen to the crunching footsteps on dry grass, and watch as the boots enter my field of vision. I tense as a hand tilts my chin up. Inscrutable brown eyes stare into mine, reflecting the light of the fire behind me for a moment before my chin is released. I frown at him as he backs up a bit, something familiar about his face bothering me as he glances past me.

“Could you-?”

More footsteps. I strain my head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of the new person. Then -

“Nuan,” I breathe, turning my head to follow him as he circles around to stand in front of me. There’s just enough light from the fire to make out his features, and I hadn’t thought -

I’d seen him before from a distance when Lu Ten came to Suzaku to meet his mother’s family. I hadn’t realized then - he looks  _ so much _ like Rei for a moment, despite the utter lack of recognition. He has her eyes - the color of hot kaf, fresh from the pot - and her hair - just curly enough that a few strands always escape her top knot to make it look messy - and freckles along the same contours, and her nose-

“Who are you?” he asks, and I abruptly see all of the differences. He’s a bit shorter than Rei, and he hunches slightly like he’s trying to be even shorter. Though I’d recognised the firmness of his steps, there’s no rhythm to dance to and nothing solid - like going to pick up a full water jug only to find it empty. “You wouldn’t happen to be from Suzaku, would you?”

I blink at him, but if he’s figured out that much, then it probably won’t take much for him to figure out the rest. I raise my chin. “I  _ am _ Akane of Suzaku.”

The boy who’d grabbed my chin shifts off to the side, bringing my attention to him for a brief moment before I turn to watch Nuan again. He’s staring at me, studying my face.

“Would you be the cousin who was always off on weather watch whenever Lu Ten went to Suzaku?”

“Weren’t you declared dead a year and a half ago?” I snap.

“You don’t look all that surprised to see me, weather watch. And for that matter, how did you know what I looked like?”

“You didn’t think I slept up on the mountain did you?” I reply, ignoring his first sentence.

“Then why did we never see you? I’m sure  _ Lu Ten _ would have liked to meet his cousin.” Nuan’s voice dips on the prince’s name, making it as much a sob as much as it is an accusation.

I bite my lip and glance away. Behind me, I can hear clothing against clothing as someone shifts. When I speak, there’s none of the defiance that was in my voice earlier. “I stayed away for the same reason I’m here now.”

“Then why are you here?” Nuan demands. “Why did you leave your safe little island, and why did you come here?”

I scoff. “Safe little island? I’m safer here than I was at home! If Suzaku was safe, why do you think I hid from you? I  _ wanted _ to meet my cousin! I kept asking my aunt again and again, and you know what? She was going to let me see him the next time he came!”

I break off panting, and let my head fall. “The next day, we got the letter that he was dead. Lu Ten was my only cousin and I never got met him on the off chance that I’d slip up, so don’t you  _ dare _ accuse me of not wanting to see him.”

“He was my best friend!” Nuan yells, his hands clenched. “You never even-”

“Nuan, enough,” the boy who’d grabbed my chin says abruptly. He rests a hand on Nuan’s shoulder and Nuan takes a shuddering breath before stepping back.

“Akane,” the boy says, “why are you here? And,” his eyes sharpen, “why is it safer for you in the Earth Kingdoms?”

My eyes dart from Nuan to the boy, and I struggle at the stone binding me once again, hoping for just a little bit of give-

I go limp. I glance at Nuan again, still dressed in the reds of Fire, and I hope they know about him, know about his bending, I hope desperately that they know and accept it because maybe-

“I’m an airbender.”

-maybe they’ll accept me too.

“Oh,” someone says behind me, and I fall to the ground as my bonds dissolve.

“Toph-”

“Shut up, Ryung,” the blind girl who had greeted me says. She pokes me with her toes as I push myself to my hand and knees. “You. Get up. Walk.”

“What?” I ask as I scramble to my feet.

“Walk. I wasn’t looking earlier,” Toph repeats.

“Why do you-”

Toph pokes me in the side, and I stumble away from her, towards the fire. “Keep walking.”

I put my hands up and walk around the fire. The boy - Ryung - watches me. I catch a glimpse of someone else peering from around the edge of a tent before whoever it is notices my gaze and flinches back out of sight. When I’ve completed a full circle around the fire, Toph motions for me to stop.

“Well?” Ryung asks her.

“She certainly walks like an airbender,” Toph says. “Jumps like one too.”

“And why it wasn’t safer for you to just keep hiding?” Ryung asks, turning to me. “You managed to hide on Suzaku for twenty years.”

“It wasn’t safe in the first place,” I reply sullenly, rubbing at where the stone bonds had chafed my wrists. “Any airbender on the islands would be a sign of Sozin’s failure, something to hunt down. Here, at least, I’d just be another refugee.”

“Hmm.” Ryung’s eyes focus on something behind me. When I glance back, there’s only the falling tent flap. “How much training do you have?”

“I . . . I don’t know. Suzaku’s near the Southern Air Temple, and we rescued many of their texts after the army went through, so I had those to learn from. There were also several of the elders who remembered seeing the airbenders back when they were alive and they were able to teach me some, but . . .” I let the sentence trail off.

“Alright. Are you Era’s, or Makani’s?”

“I don’t know?” I hadn’t even known that you could be one or the other’s if your element had two great spirits. I grew up around firebenders and people of Fire, and there was only Agni for them. I hadn’t thought the other elements would be that different. “Is there a difference?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” three voices answer me.

“Oh.”

Ryung examines me again, then nods. “Alright then. We’ll take you.”

“What?” I ask, feeling a little off balance.

“You came here to blend in, right? Well, you can do that better in a group. I’m Zuko,” Ryung says, and my eyes widen.

Zuko, as Lu Ten’s other cousin Zuko? As in  _ Prince _ Zuko? Prince Zuko who’s been missing for a year and a half?

“And the girl who made you walk around the fire is Toph Beifong,” Zuko continues as if the revelation of his name isn’t almost earth shattering. “You already know Nuan of course. The last member of our group, however . . .”

“Do you want me to get him?” Toph offers.

I startle at the sound of a short, sharp whistle, and I twist around just in time to see the tent that had been moving earlier bust open as a young boy comes storming out, gesturing wildly.

“Yes, Samir, I-” Zuko is cut off by a sharp whistle.

The boy glares. When Zuko doesn’t try to talk again, he glances at me. The fire between us is reflected in his eyes. I watch warily as he rounds the fire to stop in front of me.

He points at me, and behind me, Toph says, “You.”

“What?” I ask, half turning to look at her.

“I’m translating for him,” she says. “Don’t look at me.”

I don’t quite understand what she means, but I glance back at Samir anyways.

“You,” Toph repeats, and I repress the urge to glance back at her. “You’re Fire Nation and you know nothing about Era and Makani, but you claim that you can airbend? You claim you know anything about airbending?”

“Samir, that’s not fair. How was she supposed to learn anything?” Nuan asks, speaking for the first time since Zuko told him to calm down. I glance at him, uncertain why he’s defending me when he was so angry with my earlier. “That’s like comparing me to Toph.”

That one sentence throws his words abruptly into a different perspective. I’d known he was an earthbender, but if he was seeing me colored by his own mistakes . . .

I don’t know if he thinks that he could have done better, that he could have escaped like I did, or if he thinks  _ I  _ could have done better, could have tried to hide better and met Lu Ten.

“You and Toph are different,” Toph says, though she sounds a bit uncomfortable. Samir’s gestures are less certain. From the expression on his face, he knows that this is a touchy subject for Nuan, but he’s not going to back down because he feels that what he’s saying is important.

Looking between them, I have a bad feeling. I’ve seen fights between people over subjects they care about, and they’re never pretty. From the way Zuko is shifting, ready to move at any moment, he knows that.

“Why?” Nuan challenges. “Because we’re Earth? Because there are so many earthbenders out there right now? Or is it because-”

“I don’t really know much about airbending,” I interrupt before Nuan can say anything even worse, and all eyes go to me. Slowly, I say, “Bending is an art for the living. You can’t truly learn it just from scrolls and a non bender's memories - I  _ know _ , I tried. Not even just that - airbending is supposed to be about freedom - I know that, I read the scrolls - and I’ve been trapped the the need to stay hidden all my life. But I  _ tried _ . Okay? I tried.”

Samir’s shoulders sag, and as Toph pushes past me to wrap her arms around his shoulders, he seems smaller. His anger had inflated him like a puffer squid, and without it, he looks small and lost. He buries his face into Toph’s tunic, and just hides from the world.

I shift awkwardly. I’d never known what to do with crying people, but I can’t just walk away from this.

“You’re an airbender, aren’t you?” I ask, if only to break the silence. He has to be - it’s the only thing that makes sense. “And you grew up around other airbenders. And . . . they’re no longer around.”

This, too, is only logical. It’s why he knows so much about Air, why the group knows so much about Air, why he’s alone, why he’s lashing out.

And I don’t understand it. I understand why, but I know I don’t understand how much it hurts, I don’t have the background to understand, but-

_ But _ , I think as he nods into Toph’s tunic,  _ maybe I can learn. The boy - the tanuki of Beifong Forest, Guying - said I would be helpful here. Maybe I can learn enough to understand some of Samir’s frustration. Maybe I can be Air in more than just the way I bend, and apparently the way I walk. _

I step forwards and bow from my waist. I look up to see the dancing shadows cast by the fire as Samir stares at me, looking confused.

“Samir of Air. I am Akane of - I am Akane.” The formal words fall from my lips. There’s a gasp from behind me, and somewhere to the right, the sounds on feet on dirt, but neither Toph nor Samir recognise the words. I’m not surprised. They’re a Fire tradition, Earth and Air probably do this differently. “I would ask for your patience and understanding, for I am unfamiliar with your ways, but if you are willing, I would like to learn and give knowledge in return.”

Samir shifts against Toph, and though he doesn’t make any gestures like he had earlier, she speaks. “Learn what?”

“Anything you’re willing to teach me.”

“And what knowledge do you have to give?” Toph asks, and the words are so close to the ritual that I wonder if maybe Earth’s ceremony isn’t so different. Even with unseeing eyes, there’s something sharp in her gaze. I straighten slowly.

I lay out what I know about airbending again. I didn’t bring the scrolls, but I’d memorized the poses. None of the elders who remember airbenders came with me, but I have their advice. In the end, I trail off. This isn’t going to be a true ceremony of adoption or apprenticeship or fostering, those are all Fire, but I don’t know how to end this.

“Have you ever heard of a fire break?”

“Yes?” I reply hesitantly. “You make them to stop fire from spreading.”

Samir’s lips thin, and he nods once. I look at him for a long moment, and it slowly occurs to me.

“Is that what you’re doing?” I ask, glancing back at Nuan and Zuko. “All four of you? Are you trying to stop the Fire Nation from spreading?”

“We’re doing what we can,” Zuko says.

I turn back to Samir.

“Well.” I think of my home. “Let me tell you about Suzaku.”


	3. South Western Earth Kingdoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fact: It’s been two weeks, and I’ve missed her the whole time. I don’t understand why I can’t stand her touch right now.

Fact: Wandering through the desert of the Southern Earth Kingdoms is lonely, even with Akane to talk to at night. I walk with my chin up, my hands herb-stained, steps as steady as a drumbeat.

Fact: I walk into towns with my hat tilted low over my eyes. People see the easy way I talk with their own healers, the way I sit down with them and talk about their food troubles, the way the dirt of their beaten down yards and desecrated gardens is suddenly loose and ready for planting after I’ve stayed the night. I tell them to plant in the forest, off the trails and on the other side of ridges so the gardens are hard to find. They see the carved Wu Tao’s dragon tooth I wear, the symbol of a healer. They don’t need to see my brown eyes. I need them to not see my brown eyes.

Fact: I know that I’m not responsible for anything the Fire Nation does. I wasn’t born when the whole conquering the world thing started, and even after that, I’m a common colony brat who skipped years of school, it’s not like anyone would listen to me. (Akane would. Akane’s family has been devoted to making life better for the people that the Fire Nation has wronged. (Akane’s family didn’t help when the Southern Air Temple burned. They couldn’t, but sometimes all I can think about is that they didn’t.)) I feel guilty anyways.

Memory: (I weave through the empty streets, going from house to house, from garden to garden, a lantern turned as low as it can get swinging gently from my hand. It’s the same wherever I go - the Colonies or the Earth Kingdoms - all the gardens are ruined by soldiers from one side or the other - taken at harvest time or trampled “so the other side won’t take it”.

I know that even this won’t help much. The next patrol will probably undo all of my hard work, but I have to try.)

Fact: The villagers are always kind. Even when all I do is bring medicine from far away or stay the day to gather herbs for an elderly healer, someone always offers me free food, and someone always offers me a bed or floor space inside for me to roll out my bedroll. Other than the whole existential loneliness of the whole thing after a life of being surrounded by people, it’s not too bad. I’m getting to travel, and while I tend to see the less glamorous towns and villages as a doctor, people are glad to see me.

Fact: They’re not only glad to see me as a doctor, but as a bringer of news. I find myself with letters to stuff into my cabinet at every village, town leaders hunting me down so I can tell them about the nearby villages over dinner. At some point before I leave, I always find myself steered to the local healer’s house. There, I’m asked about who I saw on the path in, asked about any signs of patrols. In return, I’m sent off with my stock of herbs restored and information on the best way to reach the next village.

Fact: I ask about the system. It’s a very practiced system - and a very consistent one. At first I’m not sure if there is even a system - giving information to the leader is after all what most visitors should do in the smaller villages I find myself passing through, and as a doctor, it’s only natural for me to talk to the local healers. But it keeps happening, and it keeps happening constantly and consistently in a way that can’t just be coincidence.

Memory: (“What’s all this?” I ask, gesturing with a piece of slightly stale bread.

Lin Ming’s head tilts. “I’m not sure what you mean. If you’re talking about the sausages, the reason I have so many is because I make them.”

“Not that.” I lean back. “The . . .” I hesitate, searching for the right word. “The whole - the whole system you have set up to squeeze information out of visitors. And not just you, but every village along the coast. Why do you have it? Who taught all of you?”

Lin Ming watches me with a inscrutable expression. “The Fire Nation didn’t start out with killing off the Air Nomads. Almost forty years before the war they tried to set up colonies. No one knows why they withdrew or why they started again, twenty five year later. But when they killed the Air Nomads, someone figured they wouldn’t stop. So they taught us to protect ourselves.” 

That’s all I learned that day.)

Fact: I picked up more bits and pieces of the story as I followed the coast down. A hundred years ago, a healer went from village to village. They talked with the leaders and the healers and the elders about the attacks on the Fire Nation. Someone thought about the normal people in advance and made steps to protect them from what must have been a distant threat at the time.

Fact: I know the Fire Nation isn’t perfect. I know it like children traded for money, like steps that falter, like a bender that won’t bend. But I still remember going to school, still remember when we were stretching every penny and they stretched just enough. I remember thinking that we were just unlucky, that if we truly needed help, it would be given. I remember having hope that my people weren’t monsters.

Fact: It was lonely, but at least I had Akane. I  _ had _ Akane. One day she just . . . didn’t show up. She was back the next day, all apologetic, but . . . it isn’t hard, as she trips over her lies, to figure out what happened. She discovered that when we fall asleep affects when we dream. And in another week she’s gone again. And maybe she comes back, but I don’t have her. And if that’s what she wants . . . I make sure it’s fully night before I go to sleep.

Memory: (Sunset dyes the horizon a beautiful brilliant orange and the clouds are streaks of pink. My lips thin as I watch the shadows around me me creep longer and longer. It’s the sort of sunset I used to commit to memory to show Akane. Now it’s just the indication that I won’t see her.

I turn back to the glass bottles of herbs I have spread out in front of me. I glance at my notebook again, tilting it so I can check when I last gathered whichever herb. I rifle through the pages to check the expiration date and glance at the bottles themselves as I note down what I need more of.)

Fact: I’m in Zhou, as far south as you can get while still on the mainland, walking along the water, and trying to place a feeling. I’m between villages and it’s getting late so I’ll probably have to camp out, and even though I’ve walked beaches on occasion from Kaiyuan to here, none of them felt familiar, felt like home, felt like  _ Nishiyama _ . They wouldn’t. Nishiyama is an inland town. I glance around, and it hits me like the glare of the the setting sun off a dog’s eyes in the bushes across from me. Okuri-inu. It feels like I’m being watched by okuri-inu.

Fact: Okuri-inu are nothing new. I’ve seen them or felt their hungry eyes on me so many times while I was in the forest collecting herbs for Tu the doctor that no trip felt complete without eyes following me out of the forest. The first few times I’d been scared out of my mind and watching my every step. Time taught me confidence though, and as I kept trekking through the same patch of woods, the eyes on my back seemed less angry, less ravenous. I almost forgot that they were out to eat me.

Memory: (It’s late enough now that I don’t mind setting down for the night. I find a good spot a bit inland to set down my medicine cabinet, and I roll my shoulders, rubbing at the sore muscles. I collect firewood. I don’t have to go too far, I just need enough to boil water for my tea because I’m not planning on eating anything more complicated than another mountain cake. The eyes follow me.

I boil water in my beat up old kettle, and I reuse my oolong tea leaves yet again, and the eyes watch me.

Dark has fallen and luminous eyes stare at me from the bush across the clearing as I banks the fire and walk around with a torch to make sure everything’s ready for me to settle down. Then I pull out my bedroll and my workbook and I settle down against a tree trunk, the torch thrust into the ground so I have light to work.

(I’ve been compiling lists of uses for herbs from all of the villages I passed through. Tu the doctor and Chao the doctor were definitely diligent about teaching me, but they couldn’t have known everything, and if I manage to compile a large enough database, I might be able to figure out more about what herbs to use and when.)

The sound of something scraping on the ground pull my attention from my book, and I glance up to see a dog (Not a foxdog, not a beardog, not a squirreldog, not even a Komainu liondog like I’ve heard you can sometimes find outside temples, lounging next to their carved counterparts. It’s just a dog) with my food sack in their jaws.

I shoot to my feet, sending my book toppling, half a thought spared to be glad I hadn’t written anything in awhile. “That’s mine!”

The dog looks up at me with liquid eyes like I’d kicked them, then unrepentantly drags the bag a step further.

I lunge forwards, nearly tripping over the end of my bed roll, and just manage to grab a part of the bag as the dog turns to run. “It’s mine!” I tell the dog again, shaking the bag slightly for emphasis. “And I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to buy more, so you can’t have it!”

The dog tugs experimentally again, then whimpers and kind of melts into a puddle when I only firm my grip. They look up at me with their head on their paws as I stand up, but I ignore them. I sigh as I glance down at the bag in my hands. I’d forgotten to tie it up. If the dog hadn’t reminded me, I might have woken to a torn bag and no mountain cakes.

I take a mountain cake out and tuck it in my pocket as I walk. Across from where I’m sleeping. There, I untie the cord and weight the rock at the end carefully as I look up into the shadows, trying to pick out a good branch. I find one after a couple of moments and toss the rock over, then pull the end until the bag is swinging above my head and I can tie it to the next tree over.

Then I walk back to the dog where they had settled close to the banked fire. Their ears perk up as they watch me approach, and when I kneel down in front of them, their head comes up off their paws. “Here. Thank you for reminding my to put my bag up.”

They glance between my face and the mountain cake several times, then they carefully lean forwards to take the cake from me with their teeth. I watch them for a long moment, leaning back to sit on my heels as they set the cake down between their paws, then start to nibble at it. Then I stand and return to my bedroll. I carefully cap my ink and smooth out the pages of my book before I put everything away. The torch gets upended and rolled in the dirt. I take off my shoes and get into my bedroll.)

Fact: The dog is there in the morning, and they follow me to the town. And maybe I’m just angry at Akane, but when I’m asked who they are, I raise my chin and say, “My companion.” I haven't even known them for a full day, but dogs are supposed to be loyal and spirits are supposed to repay debts, and maybe a mountain cake’s not much, but it's something.  _ I’m _ something. And maybe it isn’t wise for humans to deal with spirits - we don’t understand them and they don’t understand us - but I’m angry and maybe a little lonely and maybe a little desperate. Maybe if I keep feeding them, they’ll keep staying. I ask for a lesson from the hunters before I leave. I learn about little snare that I can set up to catch things overnight and how to skin an animal.

Fact: In the light of day, I can see the dog’s ribs under their fur. They stay with me, though they refuse to take any of my mountain cakes after that first night, even when my snares don’t catch anything. They sleep next to me at night. I sell or trade with the furs to the tanner and the bones to housewives when I get to town. The new source of income makes something that had been curled tight like fist relax. I don’t feel like I’m cheating them out of their food anymore, or like I’m taking charity or like I’m holding their healing in exchange for food.

Fact: I’m writing in my notebook, two weeks after we met, when their ears perk up. Well, that’s not unusual, but this time when they raise their head from their paws, they don’t put it back down. I notice this after a couple moments, and I set my book to the side, making one of their ears flicker. 

Memory: (Before I can ask what’s wrong, I catch the staccato sound of sandals on the path that leads past the clearing. I watch with sharp eyes as little puffs of dust appear along the path, leading right up to the dog. The dog lets out a sharp bark, and the sandals tap in place for a minute before stopping. The dog lets out another bark and the sandals dart back to the path.

The dog turns to me, then settles their weight against my legs a bit more heavily. I blink at them. And . . . I knew that they were a spirit. They have to be - only spirits have animals that are  _ just _ one animal - like kitsune or tanuki. But this is really the first time I’ve seen them do anything overtly spirit-like.

Then I turn back to my work book because I did know they were a spirit and revelations can’t last forever when you’re trying to save the world, or at least revolutionize medicine.

I manage to get some more work done when another shift in the dog’s weight against my leg catches my attention. Their ears are standing at attention, and their eyes are focused once more on something I can’t see on the path. I follow their gaze for a moment - and a glint of light flutters out from behind the tree trunks. The little ball of fire dipps drunkenly before drifting forwards again, and it’s quickly followed by another blue ball of fire that dances around it in circles.

More onibi follow the first two, following the path. Some drift by, holding themselves steady in an almost stately manner, while other bob and weave ache chase each other around like children. Then, as I’m setting my work book aside, heavy footsteps sound on the path. Through the trees, I catch brief glimpses of blue skin, illuminated by more onibi, before the oni steps into the clearing. He moves slowly, swinging his iron club next to his leg. His wild black hair shifts as he turns to look at me, and he laughs.

The low level growl the dog had been letting off since the footsteps started abruptly gets louder as the dog darts to their feet between us.

The oni’s gaze shifts to the dog and he laughs again, before waving a hand and saying something. His voice is like a crackle of fire or the rumble of a mudslide, but the dog must have understood what they said because they throw themselves against my legs again, though the rumble of their chest against my shin doesn’t go away until the oni has disappeared back into the trees.

And on the trail, more spirits walk. There are Kage Onna, their shadows impossibly dark against the silvery moonlight and the orange and blue of the onibi; Iso Onna And Nure Onna with their blurry legs and serpentine lower halves respectively, who are chatting; a Akaneme, its greasy hair covering its eyes as it sullenly licks an ancient, moldy sandal; and a pair of Bakezori running around their feet. A baku plods along, its elephant trunk hanging low; a huge Peng flies overhead; and a red-haired Shojo and a huge, moss covered Yeren walk and talk, the three-legged Sanzuwu on the Yeren’s staff occasionally fluttering their wings for balance.

Betobeto, like the first one that tapped in front of the dog, are some of the most common spirits here, rushing up and down the path in sandals and boots and even bare feet, sending the onibi swirling in their wake.)

Fact: The dog remains between me and the spirits the whole time, sometimes growling or snapping at spirits that look our way for too long. I watch the spirits in awe for the most part, though I occasionally glance up at the sky to judge the time. I managed to avoid Akane for two weeks (not that it was hard), but if seeing her is the price for watching a spirit parade, I can hide in the dreamscape.

Fact: When I finally fall asleep, somewhere between the last onibi and the sunrise, Akane isn’t there. She wasn’t there all day, and I wake up late in the afternoon gasping, my heart pounding, and scared because - What if she was right? What if Akane was right? What if we really are drifting apart? I know - I know that she just said that so I’d stop worrying as she slept during the day - but what if she was right? What if dreaming apart for a while is all it took for her words to be real? I know that we still have the same mindscape because I’m not the one making the little houses I keep finding lying around, but what if we can’t see each other when we dream anymore?

Fact: I bury my face in the dog’s fur, and they make worried noises, twisting oddly to stick their nose in my neck as I cry. I sob, and I gasp, and my when my nose starts running, I pull back to bury my face in a handkerchief, and just because I’m angry with her doesn’t mean I want to never see her again! By the time my tears stop, my face is red, my eyes hurt, my nose feels raw, and I feel almost empty of emotion. “I’m okay,” I tell the dog, even though it’s a little bit of a complete and total lie and we both know it.

Fact: We don’t make it to the next town, but that’s alright, I honestly hadn’t wanted to. I try to go to sleep around sundown, I maybe cry a little more, and I lay sleepless for most of the night. Akane’s not there, even though I wake up at noon. I cry a little more, I get up, I keep walking. I keep a hand on the dog’s back, almost scared that they’ll leave me too. We reach the town, and I follow the villagers as they lead me gently through the system. I am distracted, but no one mentions it until I’m seated across from the village leader and her husband.

Memory: (It takes me a long moment to realize that Izumi had spoken to me, and a moment more to tear myself out of my musings on her and the village.

(Izumi. It’s a Fire name, or at least it would have been if it didn’t mean fountain. And then there’s the fact that Izumi is the leader of this village, and not her husband Kaito. Kaito’s a Fire name too. It means sea or ocean.)

(The breeze smells like sea salt.)

I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Could you repeat your question?”

“I was asking why you’re so distracted,” Izumi says.

The dog’s head pushes up against my hand when I drop it, and I manage a thin smile. “I lost contact with someone I care about recently, and I’m worried about her.”

“Ah, would you like to to not talk to you?” she asks, and I blink at her bluntness.

“No. No, I’ll be fine.”)

Fact: That night, when I finally get to sleep, Akane’s there. I show up behind her, and for a long moment I just stare at her. Then she turns, and she sees me. She just stares at me for a moment too, before she leaps at me to throw her arms around my neck. She says my name over and over, crying on my shoulder. She’s different. She’s still all chin up, eyes dancing, always moving, but it’s like in the two weeks we were apart, something important happened and some great weight was lifted off of her shoulders.

Fact: It’s been two weeks, and I’ve missed her the whole time. I don’t understand why I can’t stand her touch right now. Her arms around me feel like the ropes the manager sometimes forced me to accept when he decided that I needed a handicap. Her words in my ears are the roaring of the crowd calling for blood, mine or my opponent’s, they don’t care. Her breath and tears on my neck feel like a rash of poison ivyoak. It takes everything I have to not pull away, to just stand in her embrace like an inanimate object for minutes as she talks.

Fact: She eventually trails off and draws back, and I don’t know if it’s because she ran out of things to say or if she’d finally realized I wasn’t responding. We stand there for a while, her hands still on my shoulders, staring at each other. Akane searches my eyes like she’s trying to find something, like she already found something she didn’t expect and is trying to convince herself she made a mistake.

Memory: (“Are you alright?” she asks carefully.

I don’t want to answer that. I nod, and I want the dog to be there. I want to bury my fingers in their fur. I want to bury my face in their fur and just let the rest of the world fall away.

“I found another airbender,” she says tentatively as she sits, tugging my hand so I’ll follow her example.

I take a deep breath. I paste on a smile. “That’s awesome, Akane!”

She lights up. “Oh! And I found Nuan too!”

_ Of course you did. Of course you managed to do everything you wanted to when you cut all contact with me. _ “How is he?”

Akane gives me a brilliant smile, and she tells me about Nuan, and the airbender she found, and the earthbender and the  _ spirits damned _ missing Fire Prince Zuko. It all sounds a lot like a spirit tale, with spirit debts and a tanuki and all.)

Fact: I’m already crying when I wake up, and I dig blindly through my pocket for the handkerchief that’s been seeing a lot of use recently. Then I bury my face in the dog’s fur and just try to block out the world. I don’t even know why I’m crying! Wasn’t I just panicking at the thought of never seeing Akane again? I got my wish; Akane’s back, and she’s happier than she was before!

Fact: Eventually though, the outside world intrudes. Izumi knock, and I go eat breakfast, and I make my rounds, and I talk to the local healer, and I stay another night. The dog trails behind my the whole time, sometimes playing with children while I’m asking after symptoms or helping someone transplant an herb they’ll need a lot of from the nearby forest to their garden, sometimes following right at my heel as I walk to my next house or just sit and think.

Fact: I’m not ready to meet Akane again. I’m really not. But, I’m too tired to stay up all night again. I go to sleep. Akane is just as excited as she was last night. She talks about the airbender she met - Samir, his name is Samir - and about what she’s learning from him - it matters which of the two Great Air Spirits you worship - and about Samir’s earthbender friend Toph who is teaching Nuan how to bend better and seems to be good at explaining things, and -

Memory: (“Akane - Akane, stop. Please, stop.”

“Are you alright?” Akane asks, reaching for me, and I flinch back. I stutter in place for a moment before I stand up, trying to make the movement look natural, trying to make it look like I was going to stand the entire time. It’s a half-hearted effort at best. I don’t believe it, and I don’t think Akane does either as she follows me up.

“I’m fine.” I turn and pace, trying to put some distance between us. “I’ve just - I’ve been feeling off lately, and I think I just need some time to adjust.”

I’m even telling the truth. I was lonely when she was gone. I can’t stand her now that she’s back, but if we go back to dreaming separately, I’m sure I’ll miss her just as bitterly as I did when she first left. I haven’t had any time to think. The entire time she’s been back, I’ve been in the village, helping, and the brief moments I had to myself weren't enough for me to think. I’m not complaining about helping people, but I haven’t had time to think, and that’s not good. I need to figure out why I feel this way.

“I just need a little time, alright? Just, can we just sit together quietly? Please.”)

Fact: I don’t manage to figure it all out that night, though I do eventually fall asleep within the dreamscape with my head on Akane’s shoulder, but I do pin some things down. The worst part, when I think of it, is that Akane’s actually trying to help me. When she hints that Toph might be able to to teach me something, she’s not trying to imply that my earthbending - which I have worked on for years, which was good enough to keep me alive in the Earth Rumbles - isn’t good enough. She’s not disregarding my vow to  _ first do no harm _ .

Fact: Akane was trying to help me learn more about earthbending, to help me learn more styles, to have fun with my element, like she’s no doubt doing with Samir. The worst part is that she was still thinking of what I would want, even after she cut contact, and all I did was try to replace her.

Fact: Izumi must have noticed my mood when I woke up because no one tries to talk to me over breakfast. They talk around me, to each other, and even to the dog occasionally, but I am left to my silence. As I’m going out the door, with my medicine cabinet squarely on my back, Izumi stops me.

Memory: (“Be careful out there. We’ve gotten reports recently of Fire Nation soldiers roaming the countryside. Yaling, a couple of villages over says she heard that they’re supposed to be guarding the caravans of goods that the Fire Nation is buying at Gaoling. Apparently there’s been a group of bandits that have been stopping them from ah -  _ collecting taxes _ , but you should be careful.”

I blink at her, then duck my head, hiding my eyes. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”)

Fact: I actually do end up coming across a patrol, and I do end up rescued by the bandits. The five bandits. Two earthbending, one firebending, two nonbending but moving in a suspiciously familiar way bandits. I recognize the one two of feet on the ground, the twist and shove of the throw I taught Akane. I recognize the three-four that sends some of the rocks flying, part of a longer dance, but still recognizable as the way I showed Nuan how to send pebbles flying.

Fact: The fight doesn’t last long. Despite the fact that two of the fighters are suspiciously child-sized, the patrol is scattered in a minute, taking with them none of the money I didn’t have, a couple suggestions for tea to help their headaches, and their unconscious comrades. Some of them send me worried glances, no doubt worried for the defenseless Fire citizen they left in the middle of a bunch of Earth bandits, but they leave me behind anyways. They have their own problems.

Fact: As the group approaches, there’s a hesitation to Akane’s and Nuan’s steps that lets them drift to the back of the group as the group approaches me. The firebender takes a step forwards to stand in front of the rest of the group as they stop in front of me. The dog leans into my leg and I dig my fingers into its fur.

Memory: (“Are you alright?” There’s genuine concern in his voice, but the words have the rhythm of routine.

I glance past him for a moment, and-

“Akane, what are you doing here?” Nuan asks.

“What's it look like I’m doing?” I demand.

“It looks like you’re trying to get yourself killed! You’re a Fire Healer in the middle of the Earth Kingdom, and you can’t protect yourself anymore with that vow you took-”

“Well, what did you think she was going to do when you left? Just sit there demurely and wait for you to return? You were still around when Chao declared her a full doctor!” Akane exclaims. 

For a moment, I wonder why she’s reminding me about all this. Then I remember that we’re not in the dreamscape anymore, that it’s not just us anymore, and I slide to my knees to bury my face in the dogs fur.

Vaguely, I can hear Nuan asking Akane how she could know if if she’d never been off that island of hers, but I can’t concentrate on that because Akane is here. It hadn’t hit me while she was fighting, but she’s here and she’s real, and I’m not crazy. She’s real and I’m not crazy. She’s real and-

“Are you alright?” It’s the firebender. His hand on my shoulder feels like a brand, and the dog’s cold, wet nose against my neck is a vivid contrast. It’s enough to break me out of the loop.

It’s enough to break me out of the loop and send me right into another one because if Akane’s real, this if the missing Fire Prince, and he’s  _ asking if I’m okay _ . The  _ prince _ . The  _ Fire _ Prince. The  _ missing _ Fire Prince.

“Not really,” I mumble into the dog’s fur.)

Fact: It takes me a while to calm down, and it helps greatly when Akane notices me while shes half way through a sentence, and clams up, starling Nuan into glancing at me and stopping as well. It’s easier to believe that I’m talking to the Fire Prince than it is to believe that Akane is  _ real _ and  _ here _ . At least everyone around me agreed that he existed before he disappeared on the night of the Fire Lord’s coronation. And besides that, it’s easy to forget that Zuko’s a prince with him sitting in the dirt in front of me in his travel worn clothes, talking about this one time he forgot the firebending steps and did one of the dances from his classical dance class instead.

Fact: When Zuko asks me what I want to do, Nuan starts to speak again, and this time Zuko shuts him up with a hard look. He asks again, this time giving me options. Options are good, because I don’t know what I want. Do I want them to leave me alone so I can continue to act as a wandering doctor? I’m shaking my head frantically before he can finish the question, my arms tightening around the dog as they try to lick my face. Do I want them to help me find a village to stay in? The answer is no again, though I have to think about it. Do I want them to escort me back to Kaiyuan or Nishiyama? Those get strong nos. I’m not going back to Nishiyama, and there’s no place for me in Kaiyuan, even though my parents are there. Finally, he asks if I want to come with them.

Fact: I want to go with them. I hadn’t even considered it before he asked, but the moment he suggests it I want it. I want it and I want it and I want it and I want it so badly my bones creak as I clench my fists and I pull away from the dog so I don’t squeeze them too tight. I want it so bad, it’s like I’ve spent my entire life longing and I didn’t know until now. It’s not about Zuko. It’s not about Samir and the hope he represents, it’s not about Toph and what she can teach me. It’s about being free with the two people I’m closest to. It’s about being able to go where I wan with Akane and Nuan. And maybe I don’t know them that well. I know one only though letters, and the other only through dreams where we’re the only people in the world. But I want to try.

Fact: I want to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's the latest chapter, I hope you guys like it! Just to let you know, I've got a second series up for Step by Step now that has the original version of The Longest Day as well as bits and pieces of history and other spirit tales that I had on tumblr, as well as Scraps from various pieces that didn't make it into the final thing for various chapters.


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